Jumat, 29 November 2013

Spied Up Date: 2015 Mini Cooper 5-Door

The MINI five-door hatch will be a brand-new addition to the range when
it arrives in Summer 2014, and we have exclusive pictures of it months
ahead of the reveal. Taken at the Oxford plant, these camera phone
images were sent in anonymously to Auto Express.

Despite being taped-up for the paint shop, you can clearly see the
stretched profile next to the three-door MINI revealed earlier this
month. "You can see from looking at the standard hatch that we will need
to expand the wheelbase just to fit another set of doors in", Dietmar
Zimmerhackl, Senior Vice President MINI Product Line told us at the
recent LA Motor Show.

The five-door hatchback is tipped to be the most lucrative member of
the new MINI range, aimed at young families desperate for extra space.
“Some people want a MINI with the ease of five doors but they don't want
it to be as big as the Countryman. That's our market here," Zimmerhackl
revealed.

A visible bonnet vent gives away that this is the Cooper S model in
our pictures – fitted with a 189bhp 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo, but
expect the five-door model to get the same all-new engine range as the
three-door. That means a 134bhp three-cylinder 1.5-litre turbo in the
Cooper and a 114bhp 1.5-litre turbodiesel in the Cooper D. A hot JCW
model will follow too, with a tuned version of the Cooper S’s 2.0-litre
turbo.

Three and five-door version of the MINI hatch will spearhead a
new-look line-up for MINI, that could total as many as eight separate
model lines, all based on the flexible new UKL1 platform. Replacements
for the Cabriolet, Clubman, Countryman and Paceman are guaranteed, while
a sporty MX-5 rival could replace the slow-selling Roadster and Coupe
models. An MPV is also being considered along with a saloon for the
Chinese market. For more details click here.